Cross-training your employees: Boosting flexibility, fostering teamwork

Getting your office staff proficient in multiple tasks can make for an even smoother-running practice -- if you take the time to do the training right.

By Larry Stevens, AMNews correspondent. Sept. 4, 2006.

There are no office positions called "receptionist," "billing clerk" or "scheduler" in medical practice heaven. Instead there is only one nonclinical job: "office worker," the perfect interchangeable staffer.

Busy day today? No problem: Move a generic worker to reception.

Falling behind in billings? Move a few workers into that department.

Sound impossible? Not if you do a little cross-training.

In athletics, cross-training is designed to develop different parts of the body, rather than work exclusively on one group of muscles. The same principle applies with cross-training in your practice. Instead of having just one person do one thing, you train your staff to handle multiple tasks.

Cross-training in your practice does not guarantee all workers can be brought to equal competency in all jobs, just as a cross-training athlete might never develop an elite skill. However, a cross-training athlete can shift workouts when, say, a part of the body is sore or injured. A cross-training practice can shift workers among various nonclinical work when, say, one is sick or otherwise out of the office.

Practices have to carefully consider the pros and cons of cross-training. They must be able to determine when and where it can be used to advantage and when and where it may result in unacceptably reduced productivity, unhappy patients, or even serious mistakes.

"I'm a strong believer in cross-training. But it has to be part of an overall, well-planned strategy," says David Zahaluk, MD, a family physician with two-doctor Trinity West Urgent Care in Lewisville, Texas. Dr. Zahaluk, also a practice management consultant, says among the factors that will affect the success or failure of cross-training are the size of the practice, the level of technology, the office's culture, the nature of the training, and the specificity and complexity of the jobs for which workers may be cross-trained.